It is shown numerically that for Fermi-Pasta-Ulam (FPU) chains with alternating masses and heat baths at slightly different temperatures at the ends, the local temperature (LT) on small scales behaves paradoxically in steady state. This expands the long established problem of equilibration of FPU chains. A well-behaved LT appears to be achieved for equal mass chains; the thermal conductivity is shown to diverge with chain length $N$ as $N^{1/3}$, relevant for the much debated question of the universality of one-dimensional heat conduction. The reason why earlier simulations have obtained systematically higher exponents is explained.

High harmonic spectra were recorded from different rare-gas atoms under identical experimental conditions. It is shown that although each atom’s spectrum is different, the differences are due almost entirely to the orbital influence in the recombination step. The amplitude of the continuum electron wave packet versus kinetic energy is derived from these data and is shown to be largely independent of the atom, in agreement with models of tunnel ionization. We compare the measurements with calculations in both the length gauge and the velocity gauge and show that the two gauges imply a different de Broglie wavelength.

We study the transport of atoms across a localized Bose-Einstein condensate in a one-dimensional optical lattice. For atoms scattering off the condensate, we predict total reflection as well as full transmission for certain parameter values on the basis of an exactly solvable model. The findings of analytical and numerical calculations are interpreted by a tunable Fano-like resonance and may lead to interesting applications for blocking and filtering atom beams.

We study synchronization properties of general uncoupled limit-cycle oscillators driven by common and independent Gaussian white noises. Using phase reduction and averaging methods, we analytically derive the stationary distribution of the phase difference between oscillators for weak noise intensity. We demonstrate that in addition to synchronization, clustering, or more generally coherence, always results from arbitrary initial conditions, irrespective of the details of the oscillators.

Transition of surface-plasmon resonance from out-of-plane photonic crystal effect is observed in a semiconductor array of subwavelength holes by optical pump-terahertz probe measurements. The dielectric properties of the photoexcited array are essentially altered by the intense optical excitation due to photogenerated free carriers. As a result, the array becomes metallic and favors the coupling and propagation of surface plasmons. The photoinduced resonant extremes agree well with the Fano model.

The scanning tomography method is developed for electromagnetic sounding of a 3D structure of an inhomogeneous dielectric half-space. It is shown that known methods of physical diagnostics are suitable for this tomography with the depth of analysis from nanometers at optical frequencies up to several kilometers at ultralow frequencies. The areas of application include nanophysics, biological and medical diagnostics, subsurface remote sensing in geophysics and geology, etc. This approach is realized in the microwave scanning tomography of living tissues where a subwavelength resolution is achieved.

We report on the experimental observation of two-dimensional surface waves localized at the edge or in the corner of femtosecond laser-written waveguide arrays in fused silica. Increasing the power of the input beam allows one to observe a clear transition from a linear diffraction pattern to localized nonlinear surface states, which can exist at the interface only above a certain power threshold. This constitutes the first ever experimental observation of two-dimensional nonlinear surface solitons in optics.

The dispersion relation of the orientational fluctuations in a quasiperiodic holographic polymer-dispersed liquid-crystal structures with tenfold symmetry was studied by dynamic light scattering. At each scattering vector we observe two relaxation modes. The relaxation rate of the slow one goes to a very low value close to every Bragg reflection spot. We interpret our findings with a qualitative model in which quasiperiodically distributed regions of pure LC are separated by regions of high polymer content with high rotational viscosity. This gives rise to a sequence of dispersion branches of the orientational fluctuations, which is analogous to phonon bands in solid crystals. The main difference in our system is that the important periodicity is in the dissipation, not potential. The slow mode extends over many characteristic lengths of the structure, while the fast mode is localized to a single cell of the structure.

A direct measure of the periodical power exchange between optical coupled modes with different polarization states is presented. The effects of the coupling on the relative velocity of the two modes are experimentally observed and analytically explained. Coupled modes are discovered to periodically attract and repel under the effect of swinging subluminal and superluminal regimes. The measurement technique is based on a novel polarization-sensitive scheme for optical low-coherence interferometry, providing in time domain the complex amplitudes of the interacting fields.

We show that a physical mechanism responsible for the enhanced transmission and reflection of ultrashort (few-cycle) pulses by a single subwavelength slit in a thick metallic film is the Fabry-Perot-like resonant excitation of stationary, quasistationary, and nonstationary waves inside the slit, which leads to the field enhancement inside and around the slit. The mechanism is universal for any pulse-scatter system, which supports the stationary resonances. We point out that there is a pulse duration limit below which the slit does not support the intraslit resonance.

The nature of Ohm’s law is examined in a turbulent flow of liquid sodium. A magnetic field is applied to the flowing sodium, and the resulting magnetic field is measured. The mean velocity field of the sodium is also measured in an identical-scale water model of the experiment. These two fields are used to determine the terms in Ohm’s law, indicating the presence of currents driven by a turbulent electromotive force. These currents result in a diamagnetic effect, generating magnetic field in opposition to the dominant fields of the experiment. The magnitude of the fluctuation-driven magnetic field is comparable to that of the field induced by the sodium’s mean flow.

Motivated by neutron scattering experiments, we investigate the decay of the fidelity with which a wave packet is reconstructed by a perfect time-reversal operation performed after a phase-space displacement. In the semiclassical limit, we show that the decay rate is generically given by the Lyapunov exponent of the classical dynamics. For small displacements, we additionally show that, following a short-time Lyapunov decay, the decay freezes well above the ergodic value because of quantum effects. Our analytical results are corroborated by numerical simulations.

In a strongly nonlinear viscous granular chain impacted by a single grain we observe a wave disturbance that consists of two parts exhibiting two time scales of dissipation. Above a critical viscosity there is no separation of the two pulses, and the dissipation and nonlinearity dominate the shocklike attenuating pulse.

We solve the problem of Taylor dispersion in the presence of absorbing boundaries using an exact stochastic formulation. In addition to providing a clear stochastic picture of Taylor dispersion, our method leads to closed-form expressions for all the moments of the convective displacement of the dispersing particles in terms of the transverse diffusion eigenmodes. We also find that the cumulants grow asymptotically linearly with time, ensuring a Gaussian distribution in the long-time limit. As a demonstration of the technique, the first two longitudinal cumulants (yielding respectively the effective velocity and the Taylor diffusion constant) as well as the skewness (a measure of the deviation from normality) are calculated for fluid flow in the parallel plate geometry. We find that the effective velocity and the skewness are enhanced while Taylor dispersion is suppressed due to absorption at the boundary.

Hydraulic jumps created by gravity are seen everyday in the kitchen sink. We show that at small scales a circular hydraulic jump can be created in the absence of gravity by surface tension. The theory is motivated by our experimental finding of a height discontinuity in spreading submicron molten metal droplets created by pulsed-laser ablation. By careful control of initial conditions, this leads to solid femtoliter cups of gold, silver, copper, niobium, and tin.

Two mutually coupled chaotic diode lasers exhibit stable isochronal synchronization in the presence of self-feedback. When the mutual communication between the lasers is discontinued by a shutter and the two uncoupled lasers are subject to self-feedback only, the desynchronization time is found to scale as $A_d\tau$, where $A_d>1$ and $\tau$ corresponds to the optical distance between the lasers. Prior to synchronization, when the two lasers are uncorrelated and the shutter between them is opened, the synchronization time is found to be much shorter, though still proportional to $\tau$. As a consequence of these results, the synchronization is not significantly altered if the shutter is opened or closed faster than the desynchronization time. Experiments in which the coupling between two chaotic-synchronized diode lasers is modulated with an electro-optic shutter are found to be consistent with the results of numerical simulations.

The scaling law for the threshold amplitude of perturbations to initiate a transition in subcritical plane Poiseuille flow as a function of the Reynolds number is demonstrated experimentally. The disturbances are introduced through an almost streamwise independent slot drilled at the bottom wall of a horizontal air-channel flow. Following the two stages of transition, linear transient growth and nonlinear secondary instability, it is found that the normalized critical injection rate ($v_0$) scales with the Reynolds number ($R$) as $v_0\sim R^{-3/2}$. This scaling law agrees with the theoretical predictions of Chapman [J. Fluid Mech. 451, 34 (2002).].

In this work, a theoretical study of the coupling of TM polarized subterahertz (THz) radiation with periodic semiconductor rectangular slot arrays was conducted, using InSb as an example. Simulation results showed that the structure with $4–12\mu \mathrm{m}$ thickness provides over a 20–30-fold increase in the electric field at slot edges in a nanosize region ($\sim 500\mathrm{nm}$). The enhancement of the THz electromagnetic field extends across the slots and reaches peak values at the edges due to discontinuity effects. Because of the strong local electromagnetic field enhancement, the structure can potentially be used for the development of novel biophotonic sensors, leading to improved detection sensitivity.

We report the observation of intermittency in gravity-capillary wave turbulence on the surface of mercury. We measure the temporal fluctuations of surface wave amplitude at a given location. We show that the shape of the probability density function of the local slope increments of the surface waves strongly changes across the time scales. The related structure functions and the flatness are found to be power laws of the time scale on more than one decade. The exponents of these power laws increase nonlinearly with the order of the structure function. All these observations show the intermittent nature of the increments of the local slope in wave turbulence. We discuss the possible origin of this intermittency.

We experimentally analyze the dynamics of a quantum dot semiconductor laser operating under optical injection. We observe the appearance of single- and double-pulse excitability at one boundary of the locking region. Theoretical considerations show that these pulses are related to a saddle-node bifurcation on a limit cycle as in the Adler equation. The double pulses are related to a period-doubling bifurcation and occur on the same homoclinic curve as the single pulses.